What Kyoto means for personal incomes

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Apr 12 08:27:44 PDT 2002


James Heartfield wrote:


>You miss the point. Englishman Richard Barry calculated his own
>personal production of greenhouse gases and compared it with the
>Kyoto target divided by the number of people. Barry's conclusion is
>that his consumption habits gave rise to three times as much CO2 as
>Kyoto allowed him. Translate that into the expected change in
>income, his wages fall by two thirds.
>
>Being honest, as opposed to wilfully vague, Barry - who plainly
>sympathises with the Kyoto agreement - looks at where he can save
>and thinks that it is unlikely he can substantially.
>
>And why should he, says I? In whose interests is an agreement that
>calls for a cut in wages by two thirds?

But this assumes no change in technology or social organization. You miss the point that we can't go on like this. But a professed technological optimist like you should have no problem with the idea that there are technical fixes for the problem. I guess your technological optimism isn't for real, given the way you just want to assume away the problem.

Doug



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